Home Depot’s co-founder Bernie Marcus is an awful guy. This is the kind of 90-plus-year-old billionaire who complains about no one wanting to work anymore because they’re lazy and “too fat” and “too stupid”—an actual quote—while showering the worst people in politics with Scrooge McDuck mountains of cash.
Marcus has been a Donald Trump supporter since the beginning. I first remember seeing calls to boycott Home Depot online when Marcus said in an interview that he planned to support Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020. He also donated $7 million to Trump’s 2016 campaign and he’s been a Republican megadonor since long before Trump came onto the GOP landscape.
Now Marcus is saying that he still supports Trump’s reelection bid, and will continue to support him—even if Trump is convicted of a crime.
In a press release earlier this month, Marcus announced his endorsement of Trump, citing his “excellent stewardship of the United States during his first term in office.” I already have so many questions.
Marcus says he supports Trump because he thinks the man is “the best person to take on and dismantle the administrative state that is strangling America.” He thinks Hamas and Israel would not be at war if Trump were president because “America’s enemies respect and, more importantly, fear” him. (Quick reminder that the guy Trump tasked with settling conflict in the Middle East was his totally unqualified Kermit-voiced son-in-law.)
“I urge my fellow Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to put their love for America above all else,” Marcus writes. And clearly, we just have extremely different ideas of what it means to love something.
Speaking with Reuters this week, Marcus says that he will still support Trump, even if he is convicted of any of the 91 felony charges he’s currently facing in four different indictments.
Asked if he would support a convicted Trump, he told the outlet, “I think so. Because I think it’s all trumped up.”
I get burying your head in the sand and declaring Trump is innocent until proven guilty. But this billionaire just said he thinks Trump is innocent after proven guilty. He’s not going to let something like the American legal system stand between Trump and his billions.
Technically, Trump could still run for president from jail, were he convicted in the next 11 months. (And his campaign would remain well-funded thanks to people like Marcus and Trump’s base of supporters who love to open their wallets when they’re feeling aggrieved.) After that, well, it doesn’t seem like there are any actual restrictions in place to keep him from serving as president from prison, although logistically, it would be a nightmare. We’re deep into “no rule saying a dog can’t play basketball” territory with this one.
As for Bernie Marcus, he retired from Home Depot more than 20 years ago, so while we’re likely to see another round of calls for boycotts, it doesn’t seem like that would actually hurt Marcus in any way. However, Home Depot is on the list of companies reportedly funding Atlanta’s militaristic playground Cop City, so if you want to shop elsewhere anyway, I won’t discourage you.
(featured image: Erik Lesser/Liaison)
